Anyone else notice that 11 of the 14 teams in the AL are at .500 or better, can't ever remember this happening this late in the season. I don't think the AL was as dominant against the NL this year as in other years so it is sort of strange. The NL has 8 teams of the 16 over .500. Maybe the NFL ideal of parity has invaded MLB.

sox1970

07-11-2012, 05:29 PM

Anyone else notice that 11 of the 14 teams in the AL are at .500 or better, can't ever remember this happening this late in the season. I don't think the AL was as dominant against the NL this year as in other years so it is sort of strange. The NL has 8 teams of the 16 over .500. Maybe the NFL ideal of parity has invaded MLB.

Check out the final AL standings of the 1991 season.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1991.shtml

The AL won interleague this season 142-110.

So the average AL team at the end of the season will be 82-80, and the average NL team will be 80-82. Obviously the Cubs, Astros, Rockies, and Padres will skew that average.

LITTLE NELL

07-11-2012, 05:35 PM

Check out the final AL standings of the 1991 season.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/1991.shtml

The AL won interleague this season 142-110.

So the average AL team at the end of the season will be 82-80, and the average NL team will be 80-82. Obviously the Cubs, Astros, Rockies, and Padres will skew that average.

Thanks for posting that, I guess everybody beat up on the Indians pretty bad that year.

TDog

07-12-2012, 02:13 AM

It isn't just the AL dominance over the NL in interleague, which only extends to a few teams. Eight of the 14 AL teams played no better than two games over .500 against the NL teams, and three, including Cleveland and KC, had losing records. The Rangers, Yankees, and Angels were 14-4, 13-5 and 12-6. Baltimore, Boston and Detroit were each 11-7. Detroit was the only AL Central team with a winning record against the NL after recording a losing record last year. Only the A's, Tigers and Red Sox would be under .500 if not for their winning records against NL. And the A's only had a winning record against the NL because in their last interleague game against the Giants, they got a game-winning home run with two outs in the ninth facing defeat. That would still leave eight of 14 teams at .500 or better. The Blue Jays are a .500 team against the AL and a .500 team against the NL.

The interleague play is part of it, and that will become less a factor as the summer progresses. A bigger reason is that the AL is more competitive top to bottom than I have seen it in a long time. Before the All-Star break, the A's swept the Red Sox in Oakland. The Mariners have handled the Tigers, beating them five of six times, and the Mariners had a losing record against the NL.

You could end up with a bunch of AL teams bunched four games either way of .500, which could make for a very interesting September with the play-in wild card.